UC Davis School of Medicine Dean Emeritus Joseph Silva, Jr. has been appointed to the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board, an 18-member committee providing advice to the Department of Defense on the prevention prevention and control of diseases and injuries among military men and women. Silva will serve on a subcommittee focusing on infectious disease prevention and control.

National minority health honor

Sergio Aguilar-Gaxiola, director of UC Davis Health System's Center for Reducing Health Disparities and an internationally renowned expert on mental health in ethnic populations, received the 2006 National Minority Health Community Leadership Award (Hispanic Community) from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Minority Health.

Distinguished teaching award

UC Davis anatomy professor and pediatrician, received a distinguished teaching award from the university's Academic Senate. A graduate of UC Davis School of Medicine, Gross took a lead role in revamping the human anatomy undergraduate course and incorporating his own clinical experiences. He is noted for creating a learning environment in which students feel the lectures to be "one-on-one," despite large class sizes.

Gubernatorial appointments

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed UC Davis School of Medicine professors James Felton, associate director of cancer control at the UC Davis Cancer Center, and Ellen Gold, a professor of public health sciences, to committees within the state's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. Felton is serving on the Carcinogen Identification Committee, and Gold is serving on the Development and Reproductive Toxicant (DART) Identification Committee.

State task force appointment

Amparo Villablanca, cardiology professor and director of the UC Davis Women's Cardiovascular Medicine Program, has been appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to the California Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention and Treatment Task Force. The 12-member task force will develop a plan to reduce the morbidity, mortality and economic burden of cardiovascular disease in the state.

Doctoring program honored

An innovative series of classes and seminars at UC Davis School of Medicine on doctor-patient communication, ethics, clinical reasoning and end-of-life care was honored recently by the National Academies of Practice with its 2005 Interdisciplinary Creativity in Practice and Education Award. The Doctoring program, a broad-based effort to create more smallgroup, interdisciplinary active-learning opportunities for students and to expose them to more aspects associated with being a physician, was created by Michael S. Wilkes, vice dean of medical education for the UC Davis School of Medicine, while he was at UCLA. Wilkes brought the program to UC Davis in 2001. It has since become a model for schools nationally and internationally.

Journal's editor-in-chief

Ellen B. Gold, professor and chief of the Division of Epidemiology in the Department of Public Health Sciences, is the new editor-in-chief for Women and Health, a multidisciplinary journal of current, scholarly information on women's health-related issues. Widely accepted as a standard reference source, the journal covers material involving the physical and psychological well-being of women, the sociocultural factors that lead to health problems, and disease prevention, early diagnosis and treatment, limiting disability, and rehabilitation.

President-elect of urologic cancer society

Ralph deVere White, director of the UC Davis Cancer Center, has been named president-elect of the Society of Urologic Oncology. The society enables urologic surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists and researchers to discuss, develop and implement ideas to improve care of patients with malignant genitourinary diseases.

New AAAS fellow

Robert Cardiff, professor and former chair of the
Department of Pathology at the UC Davis School of Medicine, was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, or AAAS. The association is a general scientific society that advances science through initiatives in science policy, international programs, science education and other areas. Cardiff, who also has an appointment at the UC Davis Center for Comparative Medicine, is a specialist in transgenic mice and mouse histopathology. He is internationally renowned for his contributions to breast cancer research.

Faculty research awards

Hsing-Jien Kung, director of basic science for the UC Davis Cancer Center, and Garen Wintemute, professor of emergency medicine, were co-recipients of the 2005 UC Davis School of Medicine Faculty Research Award. Kung and Wintemute each received a $350 stipend and a $7,500 fellowship. The award recognizes outstanding contributions to biomedical science and medicine through laboratory or clinical research.

New CME medical director

Gibbe Parsons, medical director of Clinical Process Improvement, has been appointed medical director for Continuing Medical Education. A member and chair of the CME advisory committee since 1994, Parsons will continue to serve as chair of the board, reporting to Executive Associate Dean for Administration and Clinical Outreach, Thomas Nesbitt.

2005 Woodard Award recipients

Tina I. Lam, a staff research associate in the Department of Physiology and Membrane Biology, and Rama S. Kota, a postdoctoral researcher in the Division of Endocrinology, Clinical Nutrition and Vascular Medicine have been selected as recipients of the 2005 Richard C. Woodard Award. The award was established by a $10,000 gift from Elizabeth D. Woodard to the UC Davis Foundation to support research of diabetes mellitus. Each will receive about $200 to be applied toward their research.

National Down Syndrome Society award

Joseph Pinter, a UC Davis neurologist, is among the 2005 recipients of a Charles J. Epstein Down Syndrome Research Award, presented annually by the National Down Syndrome Society. Pinter's research proposal that was honored will use functional MRI to investigate the pattern of brain activations in individuals with Down syndrome during both expressive and receptive language tasks.

American College of Physicians regent

Faith Fitzgerald, professor of medicine and assistant dean of Humanities and Bioethics at UC Davis Health System, has been elected as a regent of the American College of Physicians. The American College of Physicians is the nation's largest medical specialty society.